I can’t believe that four years has already passed by since the day the love of my life and I decided to tie the knot. Our engagement was so unexpected, on my end, because as a sophomore in college I just didn’t think about marriage that much. So the day Chad sent me on a scavenger hunt around Tallahassee which eventually led me to him, down on one knee, in that moment I was flooded with emotion and knew that this was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I was no longer fearful of getting married at such a young age, in fact, I considered ourselves (and I still do) lucky that we found each other so quickly. 
We’ve grown into adults together. We’ve seen each other at our worst and at our best. Chad truly is my best friend, and the one I always run to first with any type of news, exciting or not.
Through these past four years, we have experienced so much together. And it is through these experiences that we have learned many things about what it means to be in a committed relationship. So I’m going to breakdown four things that I have learned throughout these four years of marriage. Here we go!
Trust One Another
You can’t move forward without trusting one another. You can’t control another person, nor should you want to. Trust in what your spouse tells you, and when he or she goes out with friends, don’t give them the third degree when they get home. Instead, ask how the outing was and show that you’re glad they had a nice time. The biggest thing you should trust, is the fact that your spouse truly loves you, and only you. You both will be much happier if you put your faith and trust in one another and leave any insecurities behind.
Remember, that you are an individual, as well as part of an unit.
Chad and I love spending time together. We have our favorite shows we enjoy watching together, we read before bed each night, we love wine tasting whenever we can, finding new restaurants to visit in Orange County for brunch or dinner is one of our favorite activities, we even play PokemonGo together. With that said, we each have activities that we enjoy doing, that the other person doesn’t. For example, I love things like running, painting, and photography, while Chad enjoys Wing Chun, playing video games, and challenging himself to eat really, and I mean really, spicy foods. And that’s ok, it’s ok to have different interests. In fact you should explore your differences because it’s these differences, at least in our case, that play a big part in keeping things exciting. We get so excited to hear about the new projects and hobbies the other one is doing.
Appreciate Each Other
Whether you’ve been together for a short time, or many, many years, it’s always important to show the other person that you appreciate them. I love the way Chad makes corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast on the weekends, rubs my head and holds me when I’m upset, messages me in the middle of the day just to send me a link to a video or article that he knows will make me laugh, or the way he always has rational and logical responses to my worries that automatically makes me feel better. These are things that he doesn’t have to do, but yet he still does. Just like he does these things for me, I do little things for him too because I love him, and if I can make his day a bit brighter by say, whipping up his favorite meal for dinner one night then that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Bottom line, don’t take the niceties or surprises for granted and always make sure to do the same for your spouse as well.
Never Go to Bed Angry
Marriage isn’t always easy. You’re going to have your rough patches, and that’s okay. You’ll get through it. When Chad and I first got married, and moved in together, we got in a lot of arguments. The majority of fights stemmed from having different ways of doing things when at home. We had never lived together prior to being married, so it was a bit of a learning experience. We’d fight over little things, like which way the toilet paper roll should go on the holder, or the proper way to squeeze the toothpaste tube. It was all silly stuff really. Of course we also have had more serious arguments, and during our first year we would just go to bed, not having resolved our issues. We quickly learned that, this wasn’t helpful. It caused us to wake up angry, and therefore our day was automatically started off on the wrong foot.
Now whenever we have an argument, we make a point to resolve it before going to sleep, even if that means us staying up a while to talk it out. We always say we love each other before we go to bed as well, which I have found to be the perfect way to end an evening.
Hurray for four years! Now excuse me while I go bother Chad haha 
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